Eminem And Ed Sheeran Are An Unlikely Pair, But They’re In Tune In A Powerful Music Video

The revival continues.

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Eminem promised an "unhappy Valentine's Day" this year. He delivered on February 14 by releasing the music video for "River," a collaboration with singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran that served as Em's second official single from his latest album, Revival.

The video depicts Eminem in a fractious relationship with the same "mystery woman" from the selfie video that leaked last week. In his verses, the 45-year-old raps about cheating on a woman and persuading her to terminate her pregnancy. That doomed love story is fictional, but Billboard says his lyrics draw parallels to the rapper's real-life marriages to Kim Mathers.

Talking to Billboard in December, Sheeran said he got an email from Eminem's manager around March 2016 asking him to send any ideas for Em's then-in-development ninth studio album. By happenstance, Ed was staying at Russell Crowe's farm in Australia and used the actor's in-home studio to record the chorus. He sent off the vocals but didn't hear anything back until May 2017, when a friend told him Eminem had recorded his verses for the track. "River" dropped in December, helping propel Revival to the top of the Billboard 200, making it Eminem's eighth consecutive No. 1 album.

Sheeran told the magazine the rapper is "such a sweet, talented guy" and the experience was "a door that I thought was closed and just opened randomly."